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ice cream dress

One of my favorite patterns to sew is the Ice Cream Dress by Oliver + S. Primarily because it is such an easy pattern to put together. I recently got my hands on a yard of Sarah Jane’s Wee Wander fabric and the chick and I decided a shirt was in order. I searched for a few patterns to purchase and then remembered that I could do a shirt out of the Ice Cream dress pattern. Win-win for me. Super easy to put together and I already had the pattern!

I ended up not having enough of my Sarah Jane to do the yoke for the top so I grabbed some fabric on a Hobby Lobby run and hoped it would work. It’s not a perfect color match, but I think it works just fine.

I decided to try this shirt without the little “V” in the front and I left off the fabric button loop mainly because I couldn’t find that piece of my pattern and didn’t want to mess with how long to cut it etc. I opted for a thin piece of elastic. I added some piping I had in the stash and I really LOVE how that turned out!

The only hiccup I continue to have with this pattern is how to do the seam on the back with the button part of the yoke. I always end up having to cut the fabric and I know I’m doing something wrong and I’m sure it’s an obvious mistake but I can’t seem to figure it out.

I let my chickadee search through the vintage button stash to find just the right button for the back… and she even sewed it on herself!

Here’s hoping a little ownership will encourage her to actual wear the shirt!

Finally got to do some Easter sewing today. I really wasn’t sure if an Easter dress was even going to happen for the chick this year, but thankfully I think it will.

The pattern is one I’ve sewn a few times and still love. I think it comes together really well and is pretty forgiving with the snafus that I tend to always make. It’s the Ice Cream Dress from Oliver + S and I do love it. The daisy fabric is a Japanese print that I totally splurged on last year on my venture to Nashville’s Textile Fabrics. It’s like $30-some dollars a yard at regular price. Terribly scary to cut into. But my…what a lovely garment it sews. I’ve got enough left to do something small with. I’m thinking a little spaghetti strap tank for the chick might be in order.

I decided to do just a white quilting cotton on the top so that I can add some embroidery and vintage buttons to it. The bottom is this yellow polka dot I had in my stash. It’s not the best feeling fabric and I’m a bit worried it has some polyester in it. I thought the stiffness would wash out, but it didn’t 😦 That said, I do think it adds some fun to the whole dress.

I did skimp on a few things this time around with the pattern. I decided to skip the pockets. I thought it would just detract from the awesome daisy print and I didn’t do the V-neck in the yoke because I wanted to make sure I had plenty of fabric to work with on the embroidery. Skipping on those things cut out some time in sewing and this dress comes together pretty quickly and easily.

Can’t wait to get started on the embroidery and show off the finished garment…hopefully before Easter!

I had my eye on this pattern for a long time before I finally broke down and bought it. Then it sat for a while on the sewing table and it’s taken me way longer than I would have liked to get these dresses done.I wasn’t sure about them as I was putting them together, if I would like how they look. But after I saw my chick running around in them, I decided I liked them a bunch.

Overall the pattern is pretty simple for an O+S. I appreciate the way that she writes her patterns so that it leaves very few visual seams on the inside. Anything I’ve sewn by them makes such a great professional finish and I always end up learning a bunch as I go along.

This time, I learned to pay even closer attention when cutting out fabric than I normally do. You fold this fabric to cut out the pattern opposite what you would normally do. You don’t fold selvedge to selvedge, but rather top to bottom. I paid attention to the top layer, to make sure these Eiffel Towers were going the right direction, but didn’t think about the back. Oops. Therefore, this became my practice dress. I’m actually really glad I did two at the same time, because it gave me a chance to really think about what I was doing and practice before I did it on the other one.

I made the Paris version a little shorter than the blue one to make it a little less “dressy”.

Overall, I would recommend this pattern. It’s well written and easy to understand and makes a pretty cute little dress that would work for kids from those very small to even an older age girl. It also has a version to just make a top also.

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daisyeyes06@gmail.com

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